“People will feed their pets while going hungry themselves”: This organization helps pet owners with the rising cost of living

Everything is getting more expensive, and caring for furry friends is no exception. A recent study found that the average cost of owning a dog has gone up by nearly a quarter in just three years. With rents rising, grocers price-gouging and interest rates increasing, people are being left to make some tough choices about their furry pals—and often, they’re putting themselves second. Providing some much-needed relief is Through Ruff Times, a Toronto organization that provides free temporary pet boarding, grief counselling and pet food for those who can’t afford it. Here, co-founder Mella Brown talks about how inflation is affecting the price of kibble, the lengths people will go to access veterinary care and why pet ownership shouldn’t be only for the well-off. 

What exactly is it that you do? I’m a program coordinator for Through Ruff Times. I do intake for our temporary pet boarding program, where volunteers take people’s pets into their homes. Our clients are generally seeking shelter or getting medical attention and can’t afford standard boarding services. I also run our pet food program, which provides free kibble to people who can’t make ends meet. We coordinate all this through our location at Breakaway Community Services in Parkdale. On top of that, I help run HOWL, a support program for people whose pets have recently passed away.

How did you get into this kind of work? My Through Ruff Times co-founder Melissa Pisante and I were working together as harm reduction outreach workers. We kept finding that our clients were forgoing access to life-saving health care because they didn’t have anyone to look after their cats or dogs while they were hospitalized or at CAMH. They’d put off interventions as serious as amputations. We’d also see people remain in violent or abusive situations until they could find a way to take their pet with them when they left. We figured that if pet boarding were more affordable, these people could get help sooner. The need was there, so we started Through Ruff Times as a volunteer project.

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The cost of living can feel crushing these days. How is that affecting pet owners? We’ve been running Through Ruff Times for the past two years, and we’ve witnessed the housing crisis have a major impact. We’ve seen people who have lost their home, but their main concern is their dog or cat. Rising costs are also forcing more people to turn to our pet food program. When we first started, we had few enough clients that we knew them all by name. Now, we get ten brand new clients every week. We’ve provided food for over 300 cats and dogs in the past three months alone. Hauling kibble bags is basically my gym membership.

Have you seen more middle-class people turning to your services? At first, most of our clients were unemployed. Now, we’re seeing a lot of people who have only recently lost their jobs or who are working but make only enough to live out of their car. We’re getting people now who tell us they never saw themselves ending up in this position. Their stories almost always involve losing housing, often through demovictions, where a building is torn down so its tenants can be evicted. They come to us grieving the life they once had, shocked that they’re now in this position and frustrated that they can’t get out. If you’ve lost your home, how do you visit new ones when you have a dog to take care of? That alone can be a reason a landlord turns you away.

Is pet care a sort of bellwether for the larger cost-of-living crisis? When push comes to shove, many people will feed their pet while going hungry themselves. Many of our clients are very isolated. Some don’t have family in their lives, by choice or circumstance, or have physical or mental health issues that make it hard to connect with people. They may have also lost friends to death and overdose. And, frankly, in a city where socializing often means going out to eat and drink, connecting with people can be expensive. Sometimes our clients’ pets are the only things keeping them from feeling alone in the world. We know that people will choose to sleep outside rather than take a bed at a shelter that won’t allow their dog. And I can understand it. My animals mean the world to me.

Animals, you say? Yes—two cats. A calico named Stevie and a brown tabby named Bonny. I was always a dog person, but my partner’s parents found Stevie wandering around the Rouge Valley. The vets told us she’d probably been left in the forest. Over the pandemic, a lot of people adopted animals, but now many people have gone back to work in-person, and animal shelters are full. Some may choose to abandon them. For the most part, though, my work puts me in touch with only the owners who care.

The price of human food is skyrocketing these days. Is it getting harder to buy kibble too? We’re lucky enough to fund most of our pet food for Through Ruff Times with donations. But, as a pet owner, I have definitely noticed pet food getting more expensive. I hear the same from the people I work with.

What about veterinary care? Is it getting pricier? Yes. I don’t want to come down on vets—they do amazing work, and their costs are rising too. But it’s unfortunate because it makes caring for pets’ medical needs really challenging. We’ve seen people pawning jewellery or taking out impossible lines of credit to pay for a trip to the vet. If it comes down to life or death, sometimes people are forced to surrender their pets to the Humane Society just so they can get the care they need. It’s heartbreaking.

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Some may argue that if you can’t afford a pet, you just shouldn’t get one. What would you say to that? All of this could happen to anyone who already has a pet. When people take on a cat or dog, they may be in a really good position to care for it—but anyone can lose their job or their home. There are also people who are looking out for animals who have been abandoned by others. Ultimately, the problem is the system—food inflation and the lack of affordable housing. I’d hate to live in a world where only wealthy people can afford pets. It should come down to who can provide the most love and care, not who has the most money.

Aside from fixing the housing market and enforcing reasonable grocery prices, what can we do in the short term? We want to build community so people aren’t so isolated. I have friends and family who will look after my animals if I’m hospitalized. In our temporary pet care program, we act as intermediaries to create those kinds of relationships. Community vet care is huge as well: there are vets in the US who do outreach on the street, going to people and seeing if their pets are okay, free of charge. We do that with pet food, bringing it to people who are living outside. If any vets want to come along for the ride, they are more than welcome.

You’ve mentioned cats and dogs—any plans to expand to gerbils, hedgehogs, rats or birds? We’re open to it! We do get requests for each of those. Every once in a while, we’ll put a call out for a rabbit sitter. But, right now, the demand for our pet care and food program is increasing every week, and our team isn’t growing. There are three of us are working at this paid and full time now, which is unbelievable, but we’re still stretched thin. For now, we want to focus on what’s in front of us. And hopefully, someday, our services won’t be needed at all.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.